Introduction to the World of Warcraft Raid Guide

Welcome to WoW Raid Guide, an indepth guide to raiding in World of Warcraft the Wrath of the Lich King and beyond!
In this blog I will be writing walkthroughs and videos on how to take down those WoW raid bosses that have been giving your guild trouble, how to survive PUGs and how to advance into the end game content of World of Warcraft with step by step instructions and guides. Ontop of how to beat WoW instance bosses I will be giving boss and class information, helping you improve how you play your character and which professions may prove useful to you in and out of the instances and raids in World of Warcraft.

Monday 31 March 2008

Magisters' Terrace Guide - Priestess Delrissa

Priestess Delrissa is the third and arguably the hardest boss in the Magisters' Terrace instance, if not for her actually abilities than her four random gaurdians. The Gaurdians have various abilities and weaknesses, I have made a quick table outlineing these below! This boss is very similar to the Moroes fight, all her adds are however untauntable, be warned!

Name Race and class Notes
Apoko Broken Shaman Drops Totems (Windfury and Fire Nova) Heals, Purges regularly, even removing paladin shields.
Eramas BrightblazeBlood Elf Fury WarriorVery fast melee attacks, can Kick, Ice Trap or be Feared, although hew is Immune to Mind Control and Seduce.
Ellrys DuskhallowBlood Elf WarlockUses Shadow Bolt, Fear, and Seed of Corruption. She has an Imp pet named Fizzle, which can be killed quickly. She can be Polymorphed and Frozen. Immune to Seduce and Mind Control.
GaraxxasSatyr HunterComes with a pet ravager named Sliver. Can use Freezing Trap, banish and Warstomp for Crowd control. He is immune to sheep and cyclone.
Kagani NightstrikeBlood Elf RogueUses Cheap Shot, Kidney Shot, and Gouge. Has Crippling Poison on his weapon. Can Vanish and reappear next to a random target. Can be sheeped and cycloned. Immune to Seduce.
YazzaiEthereal MageUses Frostbolt, Frost Nova, Blizzard, and randomly Polymorphs a target. She will also Ice Block. Can be polymorphed. Immune to Seduce.
ZelfanGan'arg EngineerUses Explosive Sheep, frontal flame cone. He can be Banished but is immune to seduce.


The Priestess Delrissa herself has several spells in her arsenall you also need to watch out for

  • Dispell Magic - Dispells two harmful spells from her adds/herelf or two benefitial spells from your party members.
  • Flash Heal - Quickly heasls an ally for 398 - 462
  • Shadow Word: Pain - lasts for 18 seconds, deals 36 shadow damage on normal 48 heroic.
  • Power Word: Shield - Places a shield on an ally, it can absorba round 1500 damage.
  • Renew - Heals an Ally for 430 every 3 seconds for 18 secodns (600 health a second in Heroics)
The key to defeating this boss is crowd control. All adds should be crowd controlled asap with any healers, Priestess Delrissa included, taken down as soon as possible. Spell steal is a great way to get some of Priestess Delrissa's fantastic spells onto your own party!

It is advisable to leave shadow word: pain on your party, that way it automatically removes any CC that may be put on them by the Adds.

Apart from that there is not really much a guide can tell you, this fight is very hectic, very random and requires a lot of independant player skill. If you still find yourself having torouble your players may find it easier if they bring a set of PVP gear for the fight.

Magisters Terrace - Vexallus

Vexallus is the second boss in the Magisters' Terrace. He is an Arcane Elemental and sits at around 131,000 health. Like the majority of bosses this guy is untauntable!

But lets get back to his basic attacks,

  • Melees for around 3k arcane damage in heroic mode.
  • Chain Lightning - Infrequently cast but random and hits for around 2400 Nature damage to first target.
  • Overload (This occurs when Vexallus hits around 10% hp) - A chain cast Arcane Blast AoE dealing 1k damage to all of your party. Increases Arcane damage taken by 10%. Stacks up to 15 times, at which point Vexallus pauses in his attacks, nuke him quick here!.

Vexallus will regularly spawn a pure energy add. These are similar to the adds on Curator but with some basic differences.

  • They have less than 200 health, can be killed by pretty much anything, even healers!
  • Only one at a time will spawn in normal, two in Heroic.
  • Energy Bolt - Deals 2800 to 3200 arcane damage. 20 yard range.
  • Energy Feedback - Placed on the player who kills it. Deals 300 Arcane damage per second. Increases damage dealt by 50% for 30 seconds. layer. This stacks upto 15 times!

Tactics!

The most important thing here is add management, these guys have pitiful health but cause a lot of damage if not instantly killed. The killing of the adds should be spread between the DPS, that way the +Damage buff is used to full effect but the 300 damage per second DoT does not stack so much the healer can no longer handle it.

Since these debuffs and buffs stack rapidly it is imperative that you nuke this boss down as fast as possible or the healer will find it impossible to keep the group alive. Some people prefer to keep their DPS cool downs on hold till they have several stacks of the + Damage buff so they are used to full effect. Another (Rarely used) tactic is to swap the DPS hitting the adds in rotation so one can lose the DoT buff. This should only be used if you have very low DPS however as it is very hard to implement correctly and drags the fight out intolerably.

All Damage caused by Vexallus and his adds is Arcane, so Arcane resist gear can really help in this fight. This does not however reduce damage taken from the Feedback DoT, so it is important you do not gimp your groups DPS or Healing.

Before Vexallus hits 10% hp make sure you have killed all the Adds, since at this point you will receive a debuff increasing arcane damage taken, greatly increasing the attacking power of the Pure Energy Adds!

Tips and Tricks

Mages can iceblock and rogues can Cloak of Shadows out of the DoT, this should be used if the healer is having trouble keeping up with the damage being dealt.



Sunday 30 March 2008

Magisters Terrace - Selin Fireheart

Selin Fireheart is the first boss of the brand new (As of patch 2.4) instance Magisters Terrace, on Sunwell Isle (Isle of Quel'Danas). He is fairly easy to take down but does some massive AoE spells which if unattended can easily take down a raid.

But as always, back to basics

  • Selin Fireheart has around 164000 health
  • He Syphons mana from crystals till he gains full mana, this also increases the damage dealt so crystals must be destroyed ASAP.
  • He casts fel explosion every second until he runs out of mana, this spell HURTS towards the end of the fight.
  • Drain Life - Drains life froma random party member, can be dispelled.
  • Drain Mana - In heroic mode only he will cast a drain mana spell, can also be dispelled.
The Tactics for this boss are laughably simple, as soon as he starts draining the crystal put all DPS on the crystal itself, this will minimise his damage increase and the number of AoE spells he can do. Apart from that its a very simple tank and spank, enjoy!

Saturday 29 March 2008

Zul'Aman - Nalorakk (The Bear Boss)

Nalorakk is Zul'Aman's first boss (Although you can switch orders if you wish). Nalorakk has bene imbued with the spirit of the bear and will periodically change into this form during the fight, bringing in a host of different effects.

Nalorakk has around 800,000 health in and out of bear form. THis migh tnot seem like much hp, but don't be fooled this boss can be difficult!

The best part about this boss is that despite the fight taking a long time it is simple tank and spank, the only difference is tank rotation (Different tank for each form) and the fact that this fight is rather healing intensive.

But back to basics,

As previously stated, Nalorakk has 800,000 hp, does not perform crushing blows, IS tauntable and will enrage after 10 minutes, so kill him quick people

His different abilities in their respective forms are,

Nalorakk in Troll Form

  • Mangle: All bleed effects cause 100% additional damage
  • Surge: Charge ability, hits plate for about 1.5k hp, hits cloth for around 3k - 3.5k hpBrutal Swipe: A cleave ability that does 11-14k damage on plate (~30k unmitigated); can be divided evenly between two targets. It has a short range so the two tanks should stay pretty much on top of one another.
Nalorakk in Bear Form
  • Lacerating Slash: Bleeding for 1735 damage every 2 sec. (18 sec duration)
  • Rend Flesh: Bleeding for 2335 damage every 1 sec. (5 sec duration)
  • Deafening Roar: Deals 1235 to 1365 physical damage and silences enemies for 2 sec. MAke sure you have a lot of HoTs up for this!
Tactics!

Nalorakk is a fairly simple boss, especially considering some of the other ZA boss skills. The main things to worry about here are your tanks keeping in position and agroing, and your healers keeping the tanks fully topped up and with active HoTs on.

Your Tanks need to arrange which phase they will take, one for bear phase and one for troll. One tank alone cannot handle both the mangle and the bleed effects. Therefore it is important that as soon as Nalorakk switches forms the correct tank uses taunt and build up agro to the right level, the other tank should back off until the active tank has enough threat to keep agro after taunt fades. Both tanks should stand ontop of one another at all times to split the damage from the cleave abilities evenly. If just one tank gets hit he will most likely be one shotted.

Yes, Threat meters are most definately a necessity by this point, especially since your tanks ar unlikely to be able to use their full threat gain capabilities.

Healers, remember to keep HoTs up with at least 5 seconds left on them at all times, restoration druids are invaluable here, for their HoTs and inneverate. When you leave the silence oafter two seconds instantly throw your quickest heal on the tanks untill they regain full health.

All DPS must be very careful not to over agro on this fight.

Killing Nalorakk will extend the ZA timer event by 15 minutes,it is well worth taking this guy down first.

Zul'Aman - Timed Event

The Zul'Aman Timed event is a bonus to the regular boss loots.

The timed event in ZA first starts when you talk to Harrison Jones, who suffers a rather unfortunate fate when the gates first open. When the event starts you have twenty minutes, this extends to 45 with the time bonuses from the first two bosses. Killing Nolorakk the Bear boss will grant you 15 extra minutes and Akil'zon the Eagle boss will grant you an extra ten. The other bosses will not grant any extra time.

After killing each boss (Not engaging, you must kill before the timer runs down) a chest weill appear by him, you get different loot in each one.

  • First chest gives a random piece of armor (iLvl 128).
  • Second chest gives a random weapon (iLvl 132).
  • Third chest gives a random ring (iLvl 141).
  • Fourth Chest gives the Amani War Bear, an awsome rare mount!
Tactics

You need to clear trash incredibly quickly to complete the full timed event, and will probably be unable to do this without Black Temple Gear. You must chain pull throughout the entire instance, this means healers must constantly rotate and takea good supply of Super Mana Potions.

Do not free the prisoners untill after the event, they do not despawn and can be freed later.

The recommended boss order for this strategy is Eagle -> Bear -> Dragonhawk -> Lynx. This order is quqite simply the most time efficient and effective. You can mount up in this instance and it should be done to save time!

To complete this in time all players must know what to do and be able to do it well, DPS must be very high and tanks and healers need to be very well geared and organised.

Karazhan Complete Step by Step Walkthrough

So after a month of writing I have finally completed the full Karazhan Step by Step Guide.

This includes two dedicated documents for Healing and Tanking Karazhan.

There are then indiviual guides for each and every boss, Enjoy.

Attumen the Huntsman and Midnight - The First and Easiest Kara Boss.
Moroes - A good test of your groups co-ordination.
Maiden of Virtue - A MASSIVE woman, fortunately very easy to take down.
Opera Event - One of three possible events, which one will you get?
The Curator - Karazhans first real gear check.
The Shade of Aran - Watch out for his IMBA spells
Terestian Illhoof and Kil'rek - A warlock and his pet demon, and then about 100 other demons!
Chess Event - A nice little mini game to break up a lonngg instance!
Netherspite - It's like starwars but with a big friggin dragon.
Prince Malchezaar - The ruler of Karazhan, he aint that big!
Nightbane - What do you get if you cross an infernal with a big lizard?

And there you have it, all you need to get through one of hte games funnest raid instances - Karazhan!

Friday 28 March 2008

Magtheridons 2.4 Changes

*Edit* Thanks to the person who noted the roll back on the changes, I have amended this to reflect the final changes released in game.

Magtheridon I have to admit used to be one of my favorite raid bosses because of the sheer co-ordination required to take him down.

Now however several changes have been made that will make this fight infinately easier and infinately more worthwhile.

Firstly lets take a look at the fight itself, it will still involve clicking on 5 cubes, despite previous claims that it would be nerfed to 3. The difference is however that you no onger receive a debuff so you only need one group to deal with it, reducing the co-ordination. (You wouldn't think getting two groups of five people to click something every so often would be hard, but there you go!)

The infernals have been nerfed, their spawn rate is lower and their abilities weakened, you should no longer have any trouble crowd controlling these.

Instant death debris from the roof collapsing has been made easier to spot.

The loot has also been vastly improved as well. Magtheridon will now drop (IN adition to the epics and his head)

The buffs the channellers gave each other on death has been nerfed, you should now be able to clear the room of them before Magtheridon Releases.

3 Badges of Justice - great for those saving up for the sunwell epics.
Pit Lord's Satchel - A BoP none unique 20 slot bag!
Black Sack of Gems - A bag containing several Epic Quality Gems!
and finally - around 25g, mhhh love the moolah.

All in all quite a nice addition for this boss!

So for those who were having trouble downing this minimum trash, quick epics boss, your prayers have been answered.

A Magtheridon Take Down Guide can be found Here

Wednesday 26 March 2008

The Final 2.4 patch change notes - including Sunwell Isle

Here are the full patch notes for World of Warcraft Patch 2.4, im off to go play now, enjoy!

Patch 2.4

Fury of the Sunwell

  • The glorious fount of arcane energy known as the Sunwell empowered the high elves for millennia, until the death knight Arthas laid siege to the elven kingdom and corrupted its sacred energies. Seeing no other alternative, a band of survivors led by Prince Kael’thas destroyed the ancient fount. Over time the surviving elves fell pray to a crippling magical withdrawal.

    Now, promising salvation for his people, Kael’thas has returned. Soon the Sunwell will shine once again, but whether the sacred fount will usher in deliverance or destruction remains to be seen.

In Memoriam: Gary Gygax

  • Blizzard Entertainment would like to dedicate the patch in memory of Gary Gygax. His work on D&D was an inspiration to us in many ways and helped spark our passion for creating games of our own. As avid D&D players and fellow game developers, we were all saddened by the news of his passing; we feel we’ve lost a true adventuring companion. Thanks for everything and farewell, Gary. You will be missed.

Combat Log Improvements

  • The combat log has undergone improvements that allow more robust combat text filtering including the ability to define custom colors for enemies and friends, as well as combat text filtering for self and others.

Global Arena Tournament

  • Players will be able to create level-70 characters with epic equipment and compete on special tournament realms in a new global arena tournament. For more information, details and entry requirements, please visit the official tournament pages.

General

  • The Sunwell Isle is now available for play. This area includes a new quest hub and 5 and 25-player instances.
  • The combined forces of Shattrath have launched an attack on the Isle of Quel’Danas, to confront Kael’thas and the Legion at the Sunwell and surrounding areas. Players will now be able to gain reputation with the Shattered Sun Offensive and participate in a new set of daily quests.
  • A representative of the Keepers of Time has been spotted at the World’s End Tavern in Shattrath. Players in good standing with the faction will be granted ease of passage to the Caverns of Time.
  • Characters will now retain talented spell ranks so when they retalent they do not have to relearn the spells from trainers.
  • Spell Haste: Spell haste now reduces the global cooldown on spells, down to a minimum of 1 second. This change does not apply to melee and ranged abilities.
  • Item Cast Spells: Many spells cast by items were being cast as if the caster were the same level as the item. Most of those will now be cast at the player’s level, giving them a reasonable chance to miss, be dispelled, or be resisted.
  • Resilience: Now reduces the magnitude of mana draining effects by the same amount that it reduces critical strike damage. The Tooltip has been revised to reflect this.
  • Spirit-Based Mana Regeneration: This system has been adjusted so that as your intellect rises, you will regenerate more mana per point of spirit.
  • Weapon Skill: Points will be gained faster in weapon skills for levels 1 through 59.
  • The Daily Quest limit has been increased to 25.
  • Non-self % based haste spells will no longer stack with each other.

Racials

  • Find Treasure: This ability no longer deactivates upon death.

Druids

  • Cyclone range is now 20 yards, down from 30.
  • Empowered Rejuvenation: This talent now properly affects the final heal from Lifebloom.
  • Gift of Nature: This talent now properly affects the healing from Tranquility.
  • Insect Swarm: Casting lower ranks of this spell is now properly penalized like other healing and damage effects.
  • Lacerate: This ability now deals additional damage based on the attack power of the Druid.
  • Lifebloom: The bonus coefficient on the final bloom effect has been reduced by 20%. This spell will no longer cause error messages when interacting with Spellsteal or while the Druid is under the effects of Mind Control.
  • Mangle (Bear) now properly triggers a 1.5 second global cooldown, increased from 1.0 second.
  • Many shapeshift form tooltips have been updated to be consistent with each other.
  • Natural Perfection: This ability will no longer be triggered by taking critical strikes while sitting. In addition, it is now affected by the Subtlety talent and reduces damage by 2/3/4%, down from 1/3/5%.
  • Nurturing Instinct increases your healing spells by up to 50/100% of your Agility, and increases healing done to you by 10/20% while in Cat form.
  • Regrowth: The mana cost of this spell has been reduced by approximately 20%.
  • When a Druid in cat form casts Pounce it will now properly animate.

Hunter

  • Equipping a thrown weapon while in the middle of an Auto-Shot will no longer cause animation issues.
  • Casting Flare while in any way not visible, will no longer cause your flare to be invisible to other players.
  • Hunter’s Mark: Hunters with Improved Hunter’s Mark will now properly overwrite Hunter’s Mark cast by Hunters without the talent.
  • Improved Mend Pet now has a 25/50 chance to remove one Curse, Disease, Magic, or Poison effect, up from 15/50%.
  • The stamina tooltip for hunter pets will now display the proper health increase.
  • Track spells will now persist after death.
  • Hunters will no longer spin around if they cast Aimed Shot or Steady Shot while facing away from their target.

Mages

  • Arcane Explosion: The damage cap for area of effect damage on this spell has been increased by approximately 50%.
  • Arcane Fortitude now increases your armor by an amount equal to 100% of your Intellect, up from 50%.
  • Blink, Slow, and Spellsteal have all had their mana cost reduced.
  • Improved Blink: This talent no longer reduces the mana cost of Blink. Instead, it increases the chance for all attacks to miss the Mage by 25% for 2/4 sec after Blink is cast.
  • Using low ranks of Fire Ward and Frost Ward spell will now be penalized the same way healing spells are penalized.
  • Frostbite: When a frost spell is reflected back at a Mage, it is now possible for the Mage to suffer from the Frostbite effect.
  • Ice Barrier: Using low ranks of this spell will now be penalized the same way healing spells are penalized.
  • Icy Veins no longer increases the chance your chilling effects will Freeze the target, but now increases the chance to avoid interruption caused by damage while casting any spell by 100% while active.
  • Improved FireWard has become Molten Shields.
  • Mana Shield: This spell will now get a percentage of the Mage’s bonus to spell damage as an additional effect.
  • New Talent: Molten Shields will cause your Fire Ward to have a 10/20% chance to reflect Fire spells while active. In addition, your Molten Armor has a 50/100% chance to affect ranged and spell attacks.
  • Permafrost: This talent will now correctly increase the movement slowing effect of frost Armor instead of the attack speed slowing effect.
  • Spellsteal will no longer overwrite a longer duration buff.

Paladins

  • Avenger’s Shield, Holy Shield and Holy Shock: Casting lower ranks of these spells is now properly penalized like other healing and damage effects.
  • Avenger’s Shield: This ability will no longer jump to secondary targets which are under the effect of crowd-control spells that break on taking damage. I.e. Polymorph, Sap, etc.
  • Crusader Strike: This ability will no longer refresh the Healing Way buff from the Shaman talent.
  • Illumination: The mana energize from this talent no longer has a chance to set off other triggered effects.
  • Holy Shock: The healing, damage, and mana cost of this spell have all been increased.
  • Judgment of the Crusader: It is no longer possible to have icons for two different ranks of Judgment of the Crusader appear at the same time when judged by multiple Paladins.
  • Judgment of Wisdom: Some abilities (such as Frostbolt) were not triggering the mana energize effect from this spell. This has now been fixed.
  • Resistance Auras: It is no longer possible for two Paladins in the same party to make it appear that players have two of the same resistance aura active.
  • Righteous Defense: This spell will now always be castable on friendly npcs.
  • Seal of Blood: This ability will no longer cause spell pushback for the Paladin with this seal active.
  • Sense Undead- Now persists after death.
  • Turn Undead(Rank 3):This spell has been reworked and has been renamed to “Turn Evil”. It will now work on Demons in addition to Undead. Turn Evil is subject to diminishing returns, and lasts 10 seconds in PvP.

Priests

  • Chastise no longer disorients the target, but now is instant cast and roots the target for 2 seconds.
  • Fear Ward is now usable while in Shadow form.
  • Focused Will now reduces damage by 2/3/4%, up from 1/3/5%.
  • Inner Focus: Chastise now benefits from Inner Focus. In addition, Starshards no longer consumes Inner Focus.
  • Mass Dispel now affects a maximum of 10 targets, increased from 5.
  • Power Infusion: Infuses the target with power, increasing their spell haste by 20% and reducing the mana cost of all spells by 20%. Lasts for 15 seconds.This will not stack with other haste effects, such as Heroism, Bloodlust, or Icy Veins.
  • Power Word: Shield: Using low ranks of this spell will now be penalized the same way healing spells are penalized.
  • Prayer of Mending: This spell will now fade from players who leave or enter an instance, change continents, or exit the game.
  • Reflective Shield: The reflective damage from this talent no longer breaks crowd control effects which break on taking damage.
  • Shadowguard: No longer consumes the charge of Inner Focus when triggered.
  • Silent Resolve:This talent now affects Surge of Light, Power Infusion, Inspiration, Spirit Tap, Blackout, Levitate, Shackle Undead, Touch of Weakness, Hex of Weakness, and Symbol of Hope.
  • Touch of Weakness: No longer consumes the charge of Inner Focus when triggered.It will also function properly even when the Priest with Touch of Weakness on is silenced or stunned.
  • Vampiric Touch: Casting lower ranks of this spell is now properly penalized like other healing and damage effects.

Rogues

  • Abilities that can be used while stealthed, without breaking stealth, can now be cast without breaking Vanish when used at the same time.
  • Cheat Death: A combat log message will now show when this ability activates and now has an animation.. It will now almost always be accurate in displaying the amount of damage done to a rogue when under the effects of Cheat Death.
  • Improved Backstab is now called Puncturing Wounds.
  • Puncturing Wounds increases your critical strike chance with Backstab by 10/20/30%, and the critical strike chance with your Mutilate ability by 5/10/15%.
  • Improved Sprint: This ability will now always remove Entangling Roots.
  • Sap mechanic changed from “Incapacitate” to “Sap”. This will allow more humanoids that were previously immune to Sap to be vulnerable to Sap, but still immune to Gouge. Note that anything that removed Sap previously will still remove Sap after the change.
  • Vanish: This ability will no longer sometimes cause the UI to display Shadowmeld as active when it has been cancelled.

Shaman

  • Call of Thunder: (Rank 5) now gives 5% critical strike chance, down from 6%.
  • Earth Shield: Mana cost reduced roughly in half, and charges reduced from 10 to 6.
  • Elemental Focus: This buff will no longer be removed when Shamanistic Focus is triggered.
  • Flametongue Weapon: Having different ranks of this enchantment cast on two different weapons will no longer cause the enchantments to trigger multiple times per swing.
  • Ghost Wolf: Cast time reduced to 2 seconds, down from 3.
  • The Global Cooldown of all Totems has been reduced to 1 seconds, down from 1.5 seconds.
  • Healing Grace: This talent now reduces the chance your spells will be dispelled by 10/20/30%.The resistance to being dispelled modifier from this talent now applies correctly to Water Breathing.
  • Rockbiter Weapon: Tooltip and error messages have been adjusted slightly.
  • Shamanistic Rage is now a Physical ability instead of a Magic spell, and thus is no longer dispellable. It now reduces all damage taken by 30% and gives your successful melee attacks a chance to regenerate mana equal to 30% of your attack power. This lasts for 15 seconds with a 2 minute cooldown.
  • Stormstrike has a new icon.
  • Totem timer icons will now show up under your player portrait when you cast totem spells. Right-clicking a totem timer icon will destroy that totem.
  • Toughness will now also reduce the duration of movement slowing effects on you by 10/20/30/40/50%.
  • Tremor Totem now pulses every 3 seconds, down from 4 seconds.
  • The Shaman spell Fire Nova Totem will no longer sometimes detonate without doing any damage.

Warlocks

  • Blood Pact now has a tooltip.
  • Demonic Knowledge: This buff will no longer remain on enslaved demons when Enslave Demon is removed. It will now increase your spell damage by an amount equal to 4/8/12%, down from 5/10/15%.
  • Demonic Sacrifice: Now works properly in sanctuary regions (such as Shattrath City and the Stair of Destiny).
  • Emberstorm now also reduces the cast time of your incinerate spell by 2/4/6/8/10%.
  • Nether Protection: The buff from this talent will no longer interrupt capturing PvP flags and bases.
  • Pyroclasm: This talent now works correctly again with Rain of Fire.
  • Ritual of Summoning can be used to summon players into instances if they meet the instance requirements.
  • Sense Demon now persists after death.
  • Shadow Ward: Using low ranks of this spell will now be penalized the same way healing spells are penalized.

Warriors

  • Cleave: This ability will no longer strike any secondary target which is under the effect of crowd-control spells that break on taking damage. i.e. Polymorph, Sap, etc.
  • Endless Rage will now give the correct amount of rage as intended from damage dealt by a Warrior.
  • Improved Hamstring (Arms) effect is now subject to diminishing returns when used in PvP.
  • Stances: It is no longer possible to accidentally change into a stance you are already in via macros (resulting in a global cooldown and loss of rage).
  • Whirlwind: Critical strikes with the off-hand weapon from this ability can now trigger Flurry and Rampage.
  • Flurry will properly refresh if a crit occurs with 1 charge left.

PvP

  • Diminishing returns on honor for kills is being eliminated.
  • Honor will now be instantly calculated, and available for player use.
  • Players that have the resurrection sickness debuff will be worth no honor.
  • Added new PvP daily quests that send players to Halaa and the Spirit Towers of the Bone Wastes. These quests are available for Alliance and Horde at their respective local quest hubs.
  • Arenas
    • Personal Rating: The amount a player’s personal rating can climb above his or her team’s rating is now limited.
    • The benefits of drinking out of combat have been delayed while in the Arena. It will now take four seconds before the full benefit of the mana regeneration will come into effect.
    • Queue times for arena matches have been reduced. Players will now be able to enter matches faster than previously.
    • Shadow Sight now increases damage taken by 5% rather than dealing damage over time. Duration has been reduced from 21 seconds to 15 seconds.
    • Players feared outside of the Arena (through the world or outside the arena walls) will now be teleported back to the center of the arena map.
  • Battlegrounds
    • If a player dies 50 times or more in a battleground, they will no longer be worth honor for the remainder of that battle.
    • When you first enter a battleground, messages about other players joining the battleground will be linked together for the first minute. You will see a message in AV like "28 players joined" rather than a line for each player that joined. After the first minute, it will work as it always has. In addition, all of the messages about other players leaving the battleground and getting marks of honor once the battleground is complete have been removed.
    • Battleground Rune Buffs:Speed, Restoration, and Berserking buffs received from battleground runes will no longer cause Stealth or Prowl to break.
    • Alterac Valley
      • Captain Balinda Stonehearth Stonehearth can no longer be interrupted, silenced, or have her spells slowed. In addition, her water elemental cannot be banished, and does increased damage.
      • Vanndar Stormpike and Captain Balinda Stonehearth have had their health totals reduced to match the health totals of Drek’Thar and Captain Galvangar...
      • Warmasters/marshals in Alterac Valley now increase each other’s maximum health and damage by 25%. This is a stacking effect.
      • Horde players will now start the battle closer to Drek’Thar and Frostwolf Keep.
      • There is now a Join as Party option.
    • Warsong Gulch
      • When both flags are held, the flag carriers will receive 50% increased damage done to them after approximately 10 minutes and 100% increased damage after approximately 15 minutes.
      • Flag carriers can now be tracked 45 seconds after picking up the flag.

Professions

  • Added several new tradeskill items to the new Sunwell Daily faction vendor:
    • Enchanting recipe to shatter a Void Crystal into two Large Prismatic Shards.
    • Enchanting recipe to increase Defense Rating by 15 for chest armor.
    • Three jewelcrafting recipes to cut gems with spell haste from Dawnstones, Talasite, and noble Topaz.
    • Two new meta gem recipes.
  • Alchemy
    • Gift of Arthas now stacks to 20.
    • Transmute Arcanite no longer has a cooldown.
  • Cooking
    • Broiled Bloodfin now increases resistances to all schools of magic instead of increasing Stamina and Spirit.
    • New recipes, Charred Bear Kabobs and Juicy Bear Burgers, can be purchased from either Bale (Horde) or Malygen (Alliance) in Felwood. These recipes requires 250 skill to learn, and are created from meat found on level 48-56 bears. This will aid players in leveling up their cooking skill to 300 without fishing.
  • Enchanting
    • Reduced the materials required for Enchant Shield – Resistance
  • Engineering
    • Gagsprocket in Ratchet now sells the plans for the Minor Recombobulator.
    • Goblin Jumper Cables and Goblin Jumper Cables XL now display cooldown information in their tooltips.
    • Removed the level requirement for the Craftsman's Monocle.
    • The stun caused by engineering Bombs and Grenades is now considered an Incapacitate effect and uses the appropriate Incapacitate diminishing returns. Bomb and Grenades can now inflict damage to targets immune to Stun and Incapacitate effects.
    • A new recipe has been added for Rocket Boots Xtreme Lite, a cloth version of the Rocket Boots Xtreme. This pattern drops from Mechano-Lord Capacitus.
    • Rocket Boots Xtreme now have all their stat points allocated toward Attack Power, and will no longer have Stamina.
    • Rocket Boots Xtreme and Rocket Boots Xtreme Lite will cause players to drop a PvP flag if used while carrying one. (Warsong Gulch, Eye of the Storm, and Zangarmarsh)
  • Fishing
    • New Fishing Daily Quests! Visit the mysterious old man fishing at Silmyr Lake outside of Shattrath City to discover what treasures he has to offer.
    • Find Fish now correctly tracks Schools of Tastyfish and Muddy Churning Waters.
    • Feltail fishing nodes have been changed to Brackish Mixed Schools; they now produce mostly Golden Darters and some Feltail.
    • Removed the level requirement from the expert fishing book, The Bass and You.
  • Herbalism
    • Ancient Lichen now has a chance to drop a Fel Lotus where it used to drop a piece of random green jewelry.
    • Black Lotus replaced by Fel Lotus in herbalism skinning tables for Outland creatures.
    • Increased the chance that Felweed, Dreaming Glory, Ragveil, and Flame Caps will contain a Fel Lotus.
    • Warp Splinter can now be skinned with Herbalism in heroic difficulty.
  • Jewelcrafting
    • A new jewelcrafting recipe has been added to transform many green quality gems into a single random blue quality gem. This recipe is available from grandmaster jewelcrafting trainers.
  • Leatherworking
    • Shadow Oil will now fit into Leatherworking Bags.
  • Mining
    • Increased the skill up potential for most smelting recipes.

Quests

  • New Daily Dungeon quests for both the heroic and non-heroic five-person Magister's Terrace dungeon at the Sunwell.
  • Players can now turn in one of each battleground mark for an honor reward. The questgivers for this turn-in are the Horde Warbringer and the Alliance Brigadier General and can be found near the battlemasters in the capital cities.
  • Dungeon and Group Quest Experience: The amount of experience awarded for dungeon and 5-person group quests in Outland has been increased in almost all cases.
  • The daily quest Escape from Skettis has had its reward tuned down.
  • The number of elite Shadowsworn Drakonid patrollers on the Ata'mal Terrace has been cut in half. Most of the remainder have had their patrol paths lengthened.
  • Increased the slots on Old Blanchy's Feed Pouch to 8.
  • The Thunderspike no longer sparkles for Alliance characters, nor does it show up on the mini-map when Find Treasure is in use.
  • "Zapper Fuel" is now flagged as a Sunken Temple dungeon quest.

Dungeons and Raids

  • All 25-player raid bosses have had their cash drops increased!
  • All 25- player raid bosses that drop set tokens will now drop an additional token!
  • Badges of Justice have been added to all raid bosses who did not previously have them!
  • Players will no longer require an attunement quest to enter Hyjal.
  • Players will no longer require an attunement quest to enter the Black Temple.
  • Players who have completed the attunement quests for Black Temple and Hyjal will be granted the title of “Hand of A’dal”.
  • You may now fight Prince Kael’thas and Lady Vashj without first killing all the other bosses in their respective dungeons.
  • The Unstable Cloud and Frost Breath spells are now treated properly as a movement impairing spells.
  • Non-corporeal Undead and Mechanical creatures are now susceptible to bleed effects.
  • Elemental creatures are no longer explicitly immune to poison and disease effects. Elementals with nature school immunities will still be immune to nature-based poisons, however.
  • Gems obtained through Heroic difficulty instances are no longer Unique-equipped.
  • Loot dropped by Doomlord Kazzak and Doomwalker has been changed to Bind on Equip. In addition, the cash dropped by these bosses has been significantly increased.
  • Scale of the Sands reputation will now be awarded in Hyjal at a much higher rate.
  • Caverns of Time: Heroic Black Morass
    • Rift Keepers and Rift Lords now have reduced hit points.
  • Caverns of Time: Mount Hyjal
    • The Vials of Eternity quest is no longer necessary for entry to Hyjal. This quest is still required for faction rings.
    • Azgalor's Rain of Fire now affects a smaller area.
  • Caverns of Time: Old Hillsbrad
    • The Human Illusion effect will now always be removed properly when a player leaves the instance.
    • Durnholde Lookouts no longer spawn in the Heroic version of the instance. The placement of creatures around Durnholde Keep in Heroic mode is now identical to that of Normal mode.
  • Hellfire Citadel: Magtheridon’s Lair
    • Many gameplay elements of the encounters in Magtheridon’s Lair have been changed to decrease their overall complexity and difficulty.
  • Karazhan
    • Players will no longer need the Master’s Key to enter Karazhan. The gates to Karazhan will still require the Master’s Key to be unlocked.
  • Tempest Keep: The Eye
    • The Vapor Clouds in the Kael'thas encounter are significantly easier to see.
    • Void Reaver is now immune to Vindication again.
  • Tempest Keep: The Mechanar
    • The Mechanar: It is no longer possible to gain an additional Badge of Justice by bringing Cache of the Legion keys obtained in other copies of the instance.
  • Zul’Aman
    • Jan’alai will now only teleport players to him if they are too far away.

Items

  • Players will now be able to purchase level 70 Superior quality PvP items from reputation vendors.
  • Avatar Regalia: The two-piece bonus from this set will now be consumed by Vampiric Embrace as intended.
  • Bloody Brass Knuckles, Eerie Stable Lantern, Baelog's Shortbow, and Snakeskin Bag have been upgraded to Superior items.
  • Blue Suede Shoes can now be disenchanted.
  • Crystalforge Raiment: The two-piece set bonus will now work properly. Additionally, the four piece bonus will now only work on the next Holy Light cast, as intended.
  • Cyclone Regalia: Trade skills will no longer consume the Energized effect.
  • Darkmoon Card: Madness: The buffs from this item will no longer interrupt casting and channeling.
  • Deadman's Hand: This item's effect now works while the victim is sitting. In addition, its effect is now properly considered a root for purposes of being dispelled or removed.
  • Deathwing Brood Cloak: These cloaks are now bound on equip instead of bound on pickup.
  • Druid Balance PvP Sets: The bonus movement speed for Bear, Cat, and Travel Form has been removed and replaced with a new bonus to Wrath and Starfire.
  • Druid Restoration PvP Sets: The bonus movement speed for Bear, Cat, and Travel Form has been removed and replaced with a new bonus to Regrowth.
  • Discombobulator Ray: This item will again not work on mounted players.
  • Frostfire Regalia: The resistance bonus from this set now works with the Burning Crusade ranks of Mage Armor.
  • Gladiator's Leather Gloves: This arena bonus will now properly school lock enemies when the damage from Deadly Throw causes them to stop channeling.
  • The Gladiator’s Thunderfist 4 piece set bonus has been reduced from 70% to 50%.
  • Gnomish Mind Control Cap: Victims of the Gnomish Mind Control Cap will no longer get Forbearance when the mind control is terminated due to Blessing of Protection.
  • Gnomish Poultryizer: This item will again not work on mounted players.
  • Goblin Rocket Launcher: Creatures will no longer gain health while affected by the Stun from this item.
  • Heavy Netherweave Bandage: It is no longer possible to have two players bandage the same target simultaneously using this item.
  • Netherweave Bandage: It is no longer possible to have two players bandage the same target simultaneously using this item.
  • Idol of the Crescent Goddess: The mana discount on Regrowth has been increased.
  • Idol of Feral Shadows: The bonus damage to Rip has been increased.
  • Idol of the Raven Goddess: The bonus healing, critical strike rating, and spell critical strike rating from this item have been increased. In addition, it no longer sometimes fails to apply the healing bonus.
  • Idol of the Unseen Moon: The cooldown added in a previous patch has been removed.
  • Idol of Ursoc: The bonus damage to Lacerate has been increased and the tooltip clarified to indicate it applies to both initial and periodic damage.
  • Idol of the White Stag: Duration increased.
  • Items intended for Retribution Paladins have had their stats adjusted. Retribution Paladins should see an increase in dps as a result.
  • Jade Pendant of Blasting: This item no longer increases physical damage dealt.
  • Justicar Raiment: The 2 piece bonus will now always give the correct amount of bonus healing to the Judgement Light effect.
  • Libram of Absolute Truth: The Holy Light mana discount has been increased.
  • Libram of Divine Purpose: The bonus damage on Seal and Judgment of Righteousness has been increased.
  • Libram of Mending: The mana regeneration buff has had its duration increased. The name of the buff granted by this item changed to Grace of the Naaru to avoid having the same name as the Light’s Grace talent.
  • Libram of Righteous Power: The bonus damage for Crusader Strike has been increased.
  • Libram of Souls Redeemed: The bonus for Flash of Light has been decreased and the bonus for Holy Light has been increased.
  • Libram of Wracking: This item now increases the damage on Holy Wrath and Exorcism instead of decreasing their mana cost.
  • Nether Vortex are no longer Bind on Pickup and can now be purchased from G’eras for 15 Badges of Justice!
  • Masquerade Gown: The spirit bonus from this item will now properly trigger all benefits from the Tree of Life talent.
  • Mojo: A pvp-flagged player can no longer kiss Mojo and cause non-flagged players to become flagged.
  • Moongraze Stag Tenderloin can now be consumed by hunter pets that eat meat.
  • Noggenfogger Elixir: It is no longer possible using this item to keep the Old Hillsbrad human illusion outside of the instance.
  • Paladin Healer Gladiator Sets: The set bonus changing Hammer of Justice cooldown has been changed to a set bonus increasing the amount healed by Holy Shock.
  • Pendant of the Violet Eye: Paladin Judgment spells will again properly trigger this item.
  • Players can now only carry 80 Conjured Manna Biscuits at a time.
  • Primal Nether are no longer Bind on Pickup!
  • PvP Relics: The bonus resilience from Idols, Librams, and Totems is no longer stackable by swapping between multiple relics.
  • Resilience has been added to all Retribution Paladin PvP gear.
  • Added Shattrath Flask of Pure Death and Shattrath Flask of Blinding Light to the reputation flask vendors in Shattrath.
  • Shaman Elemental PvP Sets: The resistance on Lightning Bolt spell pushback has been reduced to 50%.
  • Shaman PvP Boots: The pre-Burning Crusade bonus to increase Ghost Wolf speed no longer works for players over level 60.
  • Shattrath Flasks now work inside the Sunwell Plateau raid instance.
  • Skull of Gul’dan: This item now shares its cooldown with other similar trinkets.
  • Steam Tonk Controller: This item can no longer trigger the Warrior talent Second Wind when it is driven out of range by the Warrior.
  • The On Use effect has been properly changed to passive for the following items: Blue Overalls, Brantwood Sash, Firewalker Boots, Gloves of Kapelan, Hellion Boots, Hibernal Gloves, Hibernal Pants, Kimbra Boots, Mistscape Gloves, Nightsky Trousers, Sacred Burial Trousers, Turquoise Sash, and Woolen Boots, Spinesever.
  • Tome of the Lightbringer: The block value and buff duration have been increased.
  • Totem of the Pulsing Earth: The mana discount for Lightning Bolt has been increased slightly.
  • Vengeful Gladiator’s Waraxe: The weapon delay has been reduced.
  • Weightstones and Sharpening Stones: The bonus damage from these temporary enchantments now works while shapeshifted.
  • Winterfall Firewater: The tooltip no longer specifies only melee attack power.

User Interface

  • The Interface Options screen has been completely redesigned. AddOns that interact with the Interface Options screen will need to be updated.
  • Players will now be able to inspect other players via their chat link.
  • Players may now inspect players of the opposing faction while they are not flagged for PvP.
  • Combat Log Improvements
    • New tabs are available for sorting combat messages.
    • ctrl-right clicking functionality has been added for individual information sorting
    • Colors may now be assigned for friends and enemies
    • The WoWCombatLog.txt file format has been changed to make it easier for programs to read.
    • The ability to chat-link player spells and talents.
  • Cast sequences work with slot numbers again.
  • GM messages now appear with a Blizzard icon near their name.
  • You can now declare war on a faction in the reputation UI while you are in combat.
  • Spell haste and Armor Penetration will now display on the character sheet. (Armor Penetration displays in the hit rating section). Spell Penetration now displays under the spell hit section.
  • Weapon enchants are now shown at the character selection screen.
  • The friends list now has a notes field per friend. Click on the note icon to add a note for a particular friend.
  • There is now a UI option to display free bag space. When turned on, your backpack will display the total number of free spaces available in all your bags.
  • You can now link quests into the chat log by Shift-Clicking on the quest name in the quest log.
  • Merchants now display how many pages of merchandise they sell (Page 1 of 2).
  • Guild Bank Changes
    • Ranks can now be set to allow withdraw of funds or allow repair with funds or both.
    • When purchasing a bank tab, it takes money out of the guild bank before it takes your personal money. This is logged as well.
    • Each Tab now has an info pane. This pane can be used for requests or for rules about the tab or anything at all really.
  • When looting Bind on Pickup items, the confirmation dialogue now lists the name of the item in the dialogue. You can now verify that you are picking up the correct bind on pickup item.
  • Bind on Pickup items that only you can pick up (Heroic Badges for instance) will no longer bring up a confirmation dialogue.
  • Players can now opt out of looting for group loot, round robin and need before greed looting styles. If a player turns this on, they will not get a looting turn in the loot cycle. This can be turned on from the right-click menu on your own portrait.
  • In Master Loot mode, all players in the group will see sparkles on corpses that have loot above the master loot threshold. This lets everyone see what the master loot items are, though they cannot interact with them. Only the master looter can loot those items still.
  • Searching for an item in the tradeskill search box should now hide empty categories.
  • The names over the heads of nearby players who are on your friends list will appear in a different color now so you can tell when they are nearby.
  • Stacked items for sale at the auction house now display the per unit price and per unit buyout price in the item mouseover.
  • The profession UI search field has been improved and now allows for searching of more types of things. For instance you can search for items by socket color, by effect ("Critical Strike" for instance) or search gems by their effect ("Strength" for instance). In addition, the searching of items by level has been made more intuitive. You can now search for items by level with "15-20" to search for items that you can make that have a minimum level required of 15 to 20.
  • The Tooltip for player Dodge/Block/Parry in the character sheet has been changed slightly.
  • Optimized particle system rendering for improved frame rates.
  • The casting bar will now display properly when casting Blizzard (mage) or Rain of Fire (warlock) with spell haste.
  • For additional notes on Lua and XML changes please visit the UI & Macros Forum.

World Environment

  • Alterac Valley, Arathi Basin, Warsong Gulch, Blade’s Edge Arena, Lordaeron Arena, and Nagrand Arena: Players who fall below the world in these environments will now die instead of being stuck.
  • Creature versions of Intimidating Shout have been changed to Frightening Shout, and the primary target of the ability is now feared instead of stunned.
  • Critters: Ambient level 1 creatures will no longer be picked as subsequent targets by chaining spells and abilities.
  • Doomwalker: This creature will no longer sometimes cause a player’s Darkmoon Card: Vengeance to trigger and put the player in combat with the Doomwalker.
  • Elites in Blade’s Edge Plateau Regions: These creatures now have an increased chance to drop rare depleted items.
  • Eye of Culuthas and Hound of Culuthas now drop grey loot.
  • Goreclaw the Ravenous can now be skinned.
  • Interacting with objects (chests, mining nodes, herbs) should no longer aggro neutral creatures.
  • Monstrous Kaliri have learned how to chase players going straight up.
  • Shardtooth Mauler: This creature now drops meat like other bears.
  • Outland Rare Spawn
    • The following creatures have had their hit points and damage significantly reduced: Collidus the Warp-Watcher, Fulgorge, Hemathion, Kraator, Marticar, Morcrush, and Nuramoc
  • The Ratchet bank now has access to the Guild Vault.
  • A mailbox has been added to the inn in Darnassus.

Bug Fixes

  • Fixed an error that was causing many auctions to never complete due to the item no longer being on the auction house.
  • Splintertree Raiders will now respawn with Torek if Duriel Moonfire and her guards are killed while the Raiders are still alive.
  • Female Draenei can no longer become stuck under a root in the tunnels leading to Blackfathom Deeps, Ashenvale.
  • The quest description text for "The Corpulent One" no longer refers to it being a group quest.
  • Saber/Tiger Mounts will now make footprints when walking backwards in snow.
  • Ogri'la Peacekeeper's weapons have been scaled to a size more appropriate for keeping the peace.
  • Unplugging speakers/headphones during the opening cinematic will no longer freeze the cinematic until canceled.
  • Pets are now able to properly attack mobs near the walls on the ramps in Zul'Aman, Bear Wing.
  • The flag on the battle map in Eye of the Storm will no longer show up as Horde controlled even if an alliance player has picked it up.
  • Channeling spells will no longer continue to show the channeling bar after zoning into arena battlegrounds.
  • Blood Elf corpses now properly have loot in Alterac Valley battlegrounds.
  • Snake Trap will no longer affect non-combat flagged players.
  • Leaving a 2v2 arena team and creating a new 2v2 team while on a 3v3 arena team will no longer result in incorrect rosters listed for each team.
  • Joining a second arena match before a previous arena has closed will no longer result in personal rating not updating correctly.
  • Attempting to promote an arena team member to Team Captain while that member is offline will no longer result in a "Player not found" error.
  • Disbanding an arena team while inside an arena battle will no longer cause the arena UI to become corrupted until logout.
  • The Arena Team Petition Window will now automatically close when the Arena Captain is out of range or offline.
  • Switching arena teams after playing a game will no longer cause the PvP tab to incorrectly display your old team's rating.
  • There is now a chat message given after attaining a new title.
  • Spells that require targeting circles will now be castable on textures that would previously disallow their use.
  • Alterac Valley quests will now properly show a golden ! or blue ? for players above level 65.
  • Nazan in Hellfire Citadel: Nazan will no longer sometimes not land on the ground until after Vazruden the Herald is killed or Nazan is heavily damaged.
  • Archimonde's Grip of the Legion will no longer target pets.
  • It is no longer possible to be saved to a Heroic instance while not meeting the requirements to get into it.
  • There is no longer an area in Serpentine Cavern where using Field Repair Bot 74A will cause it to fall through the ground.
  • There is no longer an area in Coilfang Steamvaults where ground targeting AOE effects cannot be cast.
  • The proc from Black Bow of the Betrayer will no longer break crowd control effects such as Scatter Shot.
  • Vengeful Gladiator's Mooncloth Hood and Vengeful Gladiator's Satin Hood will now display Troll Tusks.
  • Thori'dal, the Stars' Fury will now display its bow animations correctly.
  • The Legion Ring boundary markers no longer occasionally disappear.
  • Monthly quests will now properly reset at midnight server time.
  • Fixed an area in Netherwing Fields in Shadowmoon Valley where players on flying mounts could be dismounted and were unable to mount.
  • It is no longer possible for players to use guild banks in opposing faction cities.
  • The Clockwork Rocket Bot can no longer be buffed.
  • Players with moderator status in custom channels will now properly lose moderator status when kicked by the channel owner.
  • Sending mail to a non-existent character will now result in players getting the message, “Cannot find mail recipient”.
  • Zeppelin Master Zapetta will no longer become confused about whether the zeppelin in Orgrimmar is arriving or leaving.

Nightbane Karazhan Guide

Nightbane is generally regarded as the last boss of Karazhan. Unlike other Kara bosses he needs to be summoned using the Blackened Urn (Obtainable from the Medivh's Journal Questline.) Once the Blackened Urn has been placed your raid group has 30 seconds to position before Nightbane lands.

Nightbane has two phases which alternate, when reaching 75%, 50% and 25% he will jump into flight phase and fly around for a duration.

His key abilities are,

On the Ground

  • Bellowing Roar - A Fear effect with 2.5 second cast time and a 30 second cooldown. This can easily be outdistanced by your ranged, stance danced by warriors and prevented with fear ward.
  • Charred Earth - Chars the ground beneath a random player. All players standing inside the affected area, shown by burning ground funnily enough, receive a DoT that deals up to 3k physical damage per second, This is mitigated by armour, can be avoided and removed by moving and can spawn in several places at once. It should not be a problem if your raid stands correctly.
  • Cleave - A Cleave effect that hits for approximately 6k on plate, 11k on cloth, this can be deadly if it co-incides with a fear!
  • Distracting Ash - Reduces chance to hit with melee and spells by 30% for 40 seconds. Can be dispelled.
  • Smouldering Breath - Inflicts 3.5k to 4.5k fire damage to enemies in a frontal cone. Afterwards players will be hit with a DoT that hits for 1.5k to 2k every three seconds for 15 seconds.
  • Tail Sweep - Inflicts 450 fire damage on enemies in a cone behind the boss, knocking them back. Deals 450 fire damage every 3 seconds for 25 seconds.

In the Air

  • Casts Rain of Bones on one random player/pet:
  • Bombards the area the targeted person was standing at the initial cast with bone fragments, which deal 352-408 physical damage in a 6-yard radius.
  • Summons five Restless Skeletons. with 13.5k health and hit for around 1k-1.5k on cloth, around 500 on plate.
  • Shoots powerful Smoking Blast every second for approximately 15 seconds. Deals 1.5k to 2k physical damage on cloth (700-1k on plate) to the target and 3k fire damage over 18 seconds. The DoT can be dispelled. This is put on the highest threat player after Nightbane moves into the air, for this reason a healer normally gets hit with these since other players are attacking the skeletons.
  • Fireball Barrage: If any member of the raid is too far away from Nightbane while he is in flight, he pelts the raid with fireballs, each doing 3k - 3.5k damage, casting 1 per second until all members are within range. This is in place to prevent an exploit, you should not see this if it is done correctly!

Tactics

Nightbane is Untauntable, so after Nightbane lands each time DPS must hold off until the tank regains agro. Healers must also be careful, but spells like Prayer of Mending from the priests are especially useful here, since they keep they tank up and help his agro.

Nightbane will first land about two thirds of the way down the terrace, After flight phase he will land much closer to the centre so it is important your groups position themselves accordingly. The groups positioning is of paramount importance on this boss, since the charred earth effect can decimate a raid if it lands in the wrong place.

Charred earth makes the ground surrounding one player hit for 3k damage a tick. Any players in this must move ASAP to avoid taking damage and overstretching the healers. To help prevent this from covering too wide an area the DPS and healers should position themselves at maximum range from Nightbane (To avoid his fear) against either of the walls, and by that its important to remember to stand right up against them. If charred earth is targeted on a player from one side the group in his vicinity should instantly move to the other groups location by the opposite wall.

If the worst happens (It will) and both sides are effected by charred earth there should be enough space for you to sit in the middle till one of the other charred earths dissipates.

If the entire floor is covered with charred earth the tank should be ready to move the boss back so the ranged players can move forward without getting feared.

All the time the tank should have his back facing the outer wall so the melee DPS can stay close and avoid Nightbanes Tailswipe as with most dragons (Between the front and back legs)

When Nightbane jumps into the air everyone should instantly run to the tank. It sometimes helps to have a paladin tank and healer for this part. This is for two reasons, when they cast consecration they draw agro from the skeletons that spawn, and paladins have much lower agro generation, so the smoking blast fired from Nightbane is less likely to hit them and more the tank.

Once the skeletons have appeared it may help if people spread out slightly so tanks can easily pick up targets. This also reduces the AoE damage taken by rain of bones,

Once rain of bones is cast the entire raid should move out of its range, this helps reduce the strain on the healers and gives them a great opportunity to regain some mana.

Keep an eye out for smoking blasts, they often hit a healer (Since they tend to generate the most threat on Nightbane during the air phase) so it is imperative that the healers keep an eye on one another to prevent deaths.



After the Air phase ends Nightbane will land again and all people should move back to previous positions. Remember that once he lands he will always drop down in the central part of the terrace so moving back a bit further is essential.

This cycle will continue at 50% an 25% as well as the initial 75% health air phase, so be prepared!

Wednesday 19 March 2008

Karazhan Guide Prince Malchezaar

Prince Malchezaar is the last official boss in Karazhan. While Nightbane is harder for most groups to master he is normally tackled fairly early on into the instance, just before curator.

Prince Malchezaar is a fairly simple boss, especially when compared to Netherspite before him. He does however hit hard, and the Netherspite Infernals that surround him can wipe even the best of raids if they land in the wrong place. First things first though, a few quick facts!

Health: around 1,200,000

  • Summon Infernal: Summons an infernal that will emit a constant hellfire AoE for 3 minutes. These cannot be killed. The Prince's cooldown for summon Infernals is once every 45 seconds in phases one and two, though this decreases to 15 seconds in phase 3.
  • Enfeeble: Only in phase 1 & 2 - Reduces the Health of five raid members (Never the tank) to 1hp for around 7 seconds, any damage = instant death. Healing effects do nothing here. Health returns to normal after this time. Enfeeble is followed by Shadow Nova so all members with this debuff must move at least 30 yards from Prince Malchezaar at this time!
  • Shadow Nova: A three second cast spell which deals 3k damage to all members within 25 yards of Prince Malchezaar, it comes with a knock back effect, so be wary of any infernals close by, he may knock you into them!
  • Shadow Word: Pain: In phase one this is cast on the tank periodically, in phase two it is cast on random party members. It must be dispelled ASAP and causes 1.5k damage a tick.
  • Thrash: Gains two extra attacks a turn in phase 2, cast anywhere between 3 and 30 seconds between each other. Causes large spike damage.
  • Parry: Avoids a frontal attack, it also increases the next attack by 40%, causing huge damage if mixed with Thrash. This can be minimised by ensuring all DPS stay behind Prince Malchezaar. This is only in Phase Two
  • Sunder Armour: Also in phase two Prince casts sunder armour on the tank, greatly reducing his armour.
  • Flying Axes: In phase three his axes fly around and attack a random party member each time. Not much can be done here other than keeping the target healed!
  • Amplify Damage: Undispellable debuff cast no raid members in phase 3. Doubles all damage taken.

A fair number of spells to look at, but since most interlink they actually give you a pretty good idea of how things go. The Strategy requires your team to pay full attention to the game as last minute manoeuvres around the battle area are common place.

The most important thing in this game is to designate a spotter. Hunters are good for this because they can just cast auto shoot while looking around. The Spotter should be marked with a symbol so all the raid can find him quickly.

The spotters job is to keep an eye on the sky looking for infernals, which take about 15 seconds to hit the raid. It is important to note that while for the greatest part of the journey they move across the sky they drop like a stone in the last couple of seconds.

Your spotter needs to make sure that you are always in a space with other places to run, he should also shout out to the tank to move if the ranged DPS are becoming boxed in.

When enfeeble is cast many of the melee DPS must run to the spotter, for that reason the spotter should keep ranged raid members at maximum range so the melee do not get confused. The spotter should ensure the path between him and Prince is clear from infernals since an enfeebled player would die almost instantly if he stepped into the AoE.

The tank should face Prince Malchezaar away from the raid and towards the wall, if the tank is against the wall it will prevent him from being thrown too far by shadow novas knockback effect

When your raid is in position, tank against the wall, ranged with a lot of space (the far end of the platform is good for this)

Your DPS should work slowly here, using mainly basic damage to let the tank gain a large amount of agro for the upcoming heavy DPS phases. It is vital that your tanks agro remains at the top of the list as if he drops to second he may become enfeebled, pretty much guaranteeing a wipe. He will cast shadow word pain periodically on the tank, this is best dispelled by a paladin since priests have to move forward to use their dispel effect.

If your group starts to get boxed in remember to move, tank and all to another part of the platform..

When Prince Malchezaar hits Phase 2 at 60% he spawns two axes which substantially increase his damage. He no longer casts shadow word of pain. And instead starts parrying, sundering armour and thrashing, causing huge amounts of damage. Healers need to be on their toes here since Prince can deal upwards of 12k damage in under a second, bugger overhealing meters here and spam heal the tank if he is anything but 100%.

The tank should ensure here that thunderclap and demoralizing shout are constantly up here to mitigate some of the damage.

When Prince hits 30% melee damage returns to normal, as does the skills he uses (Minus enfeeble) and shadow word pain is cast on random raid members. He will throw his axes at random people, who must be healed rapidly to prevent deaths.

He will now bring down infernals much more rapidly, nearly every 15 seconds, so prince must be all out nuked here.

Do not be too disheartened if your group wipes on this boss, most of the time wipes occur due to unlucky infernal drops or prince stringing together some unlucky parries and thrashes.

You will down prince soon enough!

Netherspite Guide Karazhan

I have to admit I knew my Netherspite guide to was imminent, and I have been dreading it.

Netherspite is by far the most complicated boss in Karazhan, he requires rotations, group setups, positioning and a group who ALL know what they are doing (Make sure they read this article, or at least another one, before starting this fight!

But lets get back to basics, Netherspite is a huge dragon with around 1,100,000 hp health. Unlike most dragons he does not cleave with his tail, so melee DPS so not need to worry about positioning!

His offensive contains

  • Around 3k base damage on plate, but can crit/crush for 11k (8k on cloth) This increases when certain beams touch him.
  • Netherburn, deals 1.2k damage to everyone in the room.
  • Void Zone - Opens up a dark portal on the ground, dealing 500-1k shadow damage to anyone standing in it every 2 seconds.
  • Netherbreath (Raid Wiper!) Anyone in front of Netherspite will get hit with around 4.5k arcane damage and knocked back 20 yards This is repeated several times and can easily whipe your raid!
  • Empowerment - undispellable buff that increases his damage by 200% during the portals phase
  • Enrage, occurs after 9 minutes and will wipe the raid!

Netherspite has two phases, a banish phase and a portals phase.

The Portals phase is based around three portals openning up around Netherspite. Each portal emits a beam which MUST be blocked by a member of your raid group. If the beams are allowed to hit netherspite he will gain a stacking buff which can make him near impossible to kill if left for too long.

All players should stay close to Netherspite during the portals phase to keep healers movement down to a minimum, he does no cleave or tailswipe with his tail, so there is no excuse for not getting in close.

The buffs on netherspite last for around five seconds on netherspite, as opposed to the 8-20 seconds that they last on players. This allows for some creative dropping in and out of beams if you are short on people to tank them.

These must be tanked by your players, and certain people in your raid group are best placed to do this for you on certain coloured beams.;

The beams themselves have different Positive and negative effects, these have different effects on both your players and netherspite depending on their colour.

Perseverance (red) - Tank beam:

Lasts for 20 sec after leaving the beam.
Hits Netherspite:

  • Damage taken reduced by 1% per tick.

Hits Player:

  • Netherspite will aggro you.
  • If no one is standing in the Red Beam, Netherspite uses his standard aggro table.
  • Damage taken is reduced by 1% per tick.
  • Defense is increased by 5 per tick.
  • Health is modified - the first application gives +31,000 maximum health, with additional stacks reducing maximum health by 1000 per stack.
  • Replenishes full health every tick.


Serenity (green) - Healer beam:

Lasts for 10 sec after leaving the beam.
Hits Netherspite:

  • Heals for +4000 health per tick. (Stacking so it heals for 4K, 8K, 12K, 16K etc. -- it is very important not to let Netherspite get hit by this beam.)

Hits Player:

  • Healing done is increased by 5% per tick.
  • Spell and ability cost reduced by 1% per tick (including abilities that require Rage or Energy, in addition to Mana).
  • Maximum mana reduced by 200. Stacks up until your total mana pool reaches 0. Druids in Bear/Cat Form will have their hidden mana bars affected as well. Rage and Energy maxima are unaffected.
  • Similar to the red beam, mana is restored to the new maximum with each tick.
  • If a Hunter uses Feign Death while tanking the green beam they will become exhausted and not be able to tank it anymore, most likely wiping the raid.


Dominance (blue) - DPS beam:

Lasts for 8 sec after leaving the beam.
Hits Netherspite:

  • +1% spell damage increase per tick.

Hits Player:

  • Damage dealt is increased by 5% per tick.
  • Healing received reduced by 1%.
  • Damage taken by spells is increased by 8%.

Before the fight starts you must assign players to beams, failure to do so can result in confusion and an inevitable wipe. Those not assigned to a beam should be DPSing or raid healing, no healing is needed on the tank during the portals phase due to the properties of the red beam which gives him complete agro over netherspite.

Deciding who tanks what is fairly simple,

The Blue beam should be tanked by a DPS class, preferably one with high health and shadow resistance. Their DPS is rapidly increased but so is the shadow damage they take! Since healing received by them is also reduced a DPS class staying in this beam too long will be susceptable to a void zone. Even if a well geared DPS stays in this for an entire phase though he should still be able to easily survive three or more netherburns.

Warlocks are great for tanking Netherspite's blue beam as tehy have drain life and life tap (Not to mention the shadowweave set bonus if they have it). With the DPS buff of the blue beam Drain life alone can heal for 1k a tick. For exactly the same reason Shadow Priests are great for tanking this beam. Even with the great self healing for these two classes in this beam you should have a healer pay the majority of their time keeping this position alive. Due to the dangerous stacking of this buff it may help to have a rotation of players to take this beam, or have the player hop out for 8 seconds to lose the debuff.

If a player dies while tanking this beam it is not a huge problem since any class can feasibly tank this with healing.

The green beam should be mostly blocked by a manaless class, however sometimes it does help a healer if he jumps in and out of it occasionally. The tank who is not in the red beam should try and take control of the green beam.

The red beam should be tanked by your main tanks. Since this gives both the health and healing required to tank netherspite who can hit for upwards of 11k with crushing and critical blows.

The tank in the red beam should be the only one who moves in and out of the beam regularly, and some people argue at all.

This is required because after around 30 stacks the tanks health drops too low. Most tanks hop in and out every 5 seconds, this ensures the +31k health buff is not removed but prevents too many ticks of the health reduction.

If the tank does lose teh buff and gains nether exhaustion (Meaning he cannot retake the beam) then another player (Not the other tank in the rotation) should take over the beam. Paladins are great for this since they can use immunity shields such as Divine Intervention to tank this.

A perfect rotation would go

First Portal Phase

Red-Tank A
Blue-DPS A
Green-Tank B

Banish Phase

Second Portal Phase

Red-Tank B
Blue-DPS B
Green-Tank A

Banish Phase

Repeat.

The banish phase can be fairly difficult, Netherspite will target random players and send out netherbreath, which will hit any player in the same vicinity as the target. It has around 60 yards range, so you can out distance it, but it is not often this is doable.

The best tactic here is to tank netherspite near the red beam, as the portal phase comes to an end everybody should run as fast as possible to the other side of the room. If for some reason netherspite is in the middle of the room everyone should spread out to avoid mass AoE damage to the raid.

It is very important to note that after banish ends the agro table is cleared so the tank MUST be allowed to regain agro before people begin to attack again.

Priests please cast Prayer of shdow protection for this fight to try and mitigate some of the mass AoE damage.

If warlocks are in the Blue beam cast curse of doom at the end of teh portal phase, this can sometimes hit for between 5% and 7% of Netherspites health.50-70k hit in one shot is never a bad thing!

Tuesday 18 March 2008

Holy Priest FAQ

These questions are asked on many websites all over the internet, I think it is vital as a healer that I know the very basics behind my class, and that all others know them too.

I hope these simple answers to being a Holy Priest will help you through your career in WoW Healing!

Q: What Talent Spec Should I Take as a Holy Priest?
A: There are two standard 'templates' for a holy build, the first is a slight hybrid, with 23/38/0, with 23 in discipline giving improved divine spirit and improved fortitude. The second is based on a fuller holy tree, with some points still in discipline for mana conservation, this is usually along the lines of 1x/4x/0. With the discipline, meditation and inner focus mixed with a holy tree upto Circle of Healing.

Q: Should I take Spirit of Remption?
A: Definately, if you dont find the angel practical the 5% + Spirit is fantastic for any priest.

Q: Should I take Lightwell (LOLwell)
A) While it can heal for around 4500 a click its break on damage removes a lot of this spells usefullness, especially with both the raidwide damage and unpredictability of bosses in The Burning Crusade.

Q: Should I take Circle of Healing?
A: Circle of healing is a great spell for getting out of a tight spot, it reaches to 1k-1.6k healing to all members of a party every second if used correctly. It is great for 5mans and raids alike. Some people however still prefer to have a better overall heal rather than this spell in their inventory.

Q: Should I take Holy Concentration?
A: Holy Concentration is a powerful talent, though choosing between this and reduced spell damage (AoE Spell damage being the nuumber one priest killer) is often a close call.

Q: Is Holy Reach Worth it?
A: It really does depend on your style of play, if for instance you use AoE heals a lot this is invaluable, whereas if you mainly single target heal you may find it more profitabel to move these talents somewhere else.

Q: What Gear do I need to run instances?
A: For Karazhan you can start at 1300 +Healing, 180 Mp5 or 400 Spirit, you should become a comfortable kara healer you should have around 1650 - 1850 +Healing 200 - 250 Mp5 or 500 - 600 Spirit.

When you reach the end of Kara you will be ready to move into higher instances, T5 Content will require you to beat the end of Teir 4 content by about another 15% and to heal comfortably you should have around 2000+Healing, 230-290 Mp5 or 600-700 spirit.

Q: As a Holy Priest Should I Stack Mp5 or Spirit.
A: The easy answer is you should be stacking both, each of these are vital, though in patch 2.3 Spirit became much more powerful for Holy Priests.

With a good ehaling talent build the following formula should be usid to figure out your Mp5 in and out of the five second rule. For Example


500 spirit and 135 Mp5 from gear.
[(500/4)+13]*2.5 + 135 : 480 Mp5 (OO5SR)
345 * 0.3 + 135 : 238.5 Mp5 (II5SR)

Q: Should I downrank spells?
A: Definately, Downranking is key to mana conservation by reducing overhealing. Dont become obsessed with overhealing though, it is much more important to keep the healer up than shave a few% off your overhealing mark.

Q: What is stopcasting and should I use it?
A: Definately, Stopcasting is much more efficient than jumping out of a spell. Stopcasting can be done by pressing escape, or alternatively by setting up a /stopcasting macro to a button of your choice.

Q: Overhealing what should I do?
A: Before the burning crusade most healers would blanche at any over healing over 20%. Nowdays however with different game mechanics overhealing should bemore at the 30% mark. Take your overhealing too low and you may find your raid dieing because of the oh so regular spike damage that is dished out in end game instances in the Outlands.

High King Maulgar (And his High Council) Gruul's Lair

High King Maulgar is the first boss in Gruuls Lair. A lot of guilds have trouble with this boss due to his four adds (High King Maulgar's Council) turning this fight into a non crowd controlled overpowered version of Moroes from Karazhan.

High King Maulgar (Not King Mulgar!) hits for around 6.5k on plate, with 10k Crushing blows. With demoralizing shout you can knock this down to 4.5k hits with 7k crushing, but this still requires intensive healing from your priests.

He also has several abilities that you MUST watch out for, these are :

  • Arcing Smash, 5000-6000 damage on plate when debuffed, cleaves
  • Mighty Blow, 5000-7000 damage on plate when debuffed, horizontal knockback
  • Whirlwind, 4000-5000 damage on plate when debuffed, he moves at 50% speed while active
  • At 50%, he will begin charging random raid members


High King Maulgar's council are all heavy hitters, there are some tricks to get around them though. But first their stats

Krosh Firehand (Mage)

  • Has around 301,000 hp
  • Spell Shield - Reduces Damage by 75%
  • Blast Wave - Deals 6k damage to all players around him for 15 yards.
  • He is immune to debuffs such as curse of tongues, counterspell and silence
  • His Fireballs Ignore all Fire Resistance Gear, grounding totems and Spell Reflections.

Olm The Summoner (Warlock)

  • Has around 276,000 hp
  • Casts a shadow DoT that cannot be removed and Stacks
  • Summons Wild Fel Stalkers
  • Deals a Death Coil (Cannot be Spell Reflected)
  • Melee hits for around 5k

Kiggler the Crazed (Shaman)

  • Health is around 301,000
  • Hexes (Polymorphs) Primary Target
  • Deals a lightning bolt for around 3k on a single target.
  • Arcane Blast - 2500 damage over 10 yards (Very infrequent so he can be meleed)
  • Arcane Shock - Deals 720-800 damage plus additional damage every 3 seconds for 12 seconds
  • Melee damage ~6k


Blindeye the Seer (Priest)

  • Health - Around 297,000
  • Power Word: Shield
  • Prayer of Healing
  • Prayer of Mending (Heals himself to Full! - 10 second cast, casts Shield first which must be taken down before standard interrupts. However the following can be used while the shield is active. Priest: Silence, Rogue: Improved Kick, Hunter: Silencing Shot, Hunter: Intimidation, Warrior: Improved Shield Bash, Warrior: Intercept, Mage: Improved Counterspell)
  • Normal Heal (Around his 5% of HP)
  • Melee around 2k (800-900 on well geared tank)

Tactics!

The first thing you need to do in this fight is ensure everyone knows where they should stand. Correct positioning means you can avoid AoE effects, or worse getting knocked from the warlocks AoE Into another, instant death for any clothies!

The basic kill order for King Maulgar's is Priest, Warlock Mage, Shaman. Though if you group is low on warlocks sometimes the Warlock is taken down first.

Both the priest and warlock can be taken down by ranged and melee so tend to die very fast, the shaman and the mage should only be hit by Ranged DPS, wit the melee moving onto High King Maulgar (But make sure they are very aware of his AOE or you will be in trouble!

Be careful not to get him below 50% until both other adds are down, as he randomly starts charging raid members, this is one of the main raid wiping problems in this fight (What happened to skill hey blizz?). Ranged DPS is much more preferable for this fight, though it is unrealistic to have a raid group comprised of melee.

The great thing about this fight is that it does not have the usual tanking roles, mages and hunters will both have to work hard for this.

The Hunters should make the pull on this, each firing Misdirect onto the relevant tank, giving them a good 2k threat head start. Remember to assign misdirect targets and boss targets for each hunter to avoid confusion.

You should have a mage tank Krosh Firehand (The mage). This is for the 75% damage reduction shield, which your mage should spellsteal at every opportunity. Krosh Firehand should be tanked at the far right of the room. Since mages are not natural tanks it is important they do not have blessing of salvation and cast any instant spells to gain maximum agro. A good pulling point is from just behind the steam vent on the right, go any further than this and you risk pulling the entire room.

Once the mage has agro he should move to the far right of the room so the raid does not have to worry about his flame wave ability. One healer should be enough to keep the mage tank up. The mage tanking Krosh should have some good stamina gear prepared for this fight to increase survivability, around 12k hp buffed is preferable, with around +16% spell hit (+6% with 5 points in the mages arcane focus talent) to reduce the chance of Spellsteal being resisted. Hunters do not use arcane shot on this boss, it removes his shield and prevents the mage from stealing it!

High King Maulgar should be tanked by the gate leading to Gruuls Lair on the far left. This leaves little possibility of knockbacks or fears sending you his AoE/Cleave Range. If you have a spare hunter keep him using misdirect on the main tank to make sure he has the highest possible agro. Two healers should be positioned on the tank. Druids are great for tanking High King Maulgar due to their high health and armour.

Kiggler the crazed should be tanked by either two warlocks or hunters who are using siphon life/drain tanking him. He can also be drained by a feral/moonkin/treeform druid because of their immunity to polymorph. Nature Resistance is a bonus here. Try and keep at maximum range to avoid the arcane blast. Shamans can be useful here as their grounding totem can absorb the Lightning Bolts. A feral druid will however take more damage as the lightning bolts are fairly puny.

A good tanking position for him is in the entrance corridor, keeping him safely out of the way.

Blindeye the seer should be pulled into the closest available space, preferably towards the back of the room and can be tanked by a DPS warrior if you are low on tanks. All DPS should be on him ASAP to get this guy down, keep interrupts up and stuns to delay his shield/full heal. A rogue with mind numbing poison or a warlock with Curse of Tongues should ensure that this is always in place to keep Blindeye's heal cast time extended. An Arms Warrior with Mortal Strike can also be extremely beneficial here.

Olm the Summoner should be tanked at the back of the room, he has no AoE so can be tanked close to Blindeye the Seer, this also allows the DPS to reposition quickly to take him down. Warlocks are good for tanking Olm with the Fel Hunters he summons (Which have taunt, woohoo!), enslave these ASAP and turn them on him, Olm will cast DoTs onto the Felhounds, this can be dispelled by one of the Felhunters own spells. If you have more than two felhounds tanking Olm send them off to Krosh and taunt him. Krosh will quickly dispose of the felhound and leave a bit of breathing space for your mage tank.

Taking down high King Maulgar

Once you have defeated the adds the spare healers and caster DPS should take a quick breather to regain some mana. Melee should not enter the fight till they see his first whirlwind pass, once this occurs move in for around 25 - 30 seconds then retreat till whirlwind passes again. A mod such as Deadly Boss Mods can help keep an eye on this for you!.

When Maulgar hits 50% he enters phase two. In this phase he drops his hammer, significantly reducing melee damage, you cannot miss this phase as he turns big and red!

In this phase he will charge random party members, which is VERY healing intensive. He will also cast intimidating shout fearing your main tank for four seconds. You should have an offtank keeping up agro and with a taunt ready allowing the main tank to recover for incapacitation and retaunt Maulgar back. If you decided to have a warrior tank Maulgar he can stance dance through this!

It is heavily advised to keep two tanks up here, Maulgar's whirlwind increases his speed dramatically, so if your main tank becomes feared he will dance around the room causing huge amounts of damage.

If you can keep this up you should have absolutely no problem downing High King Maulgar!

Suggested group layout for this is,

  • 4 Hunters - (3 misdirection pulls onto Mage Tank, Maulgar Tank and Olm tank, one straight onto Kiggler)
  • 1 Mage Tank
  • 2 Warlocks on Olm
  • 2 Tanks on Olm
  • 1 Tank on Maulgar
  • 1 MS Warrior on Blindeye
  • 1 Tank on roaming Fel Hounds (in case of resist from a Warlock)
  • 7 reasonably geared healers
  • 2 Rogues

Monday 17 March 2008

WoW Levelling guide 1 to 70 in less than a week.

Its not often that I feel compelled to promote a particular product. My affiliate links are Amazon based, none biased and pretty much just a virtual store so people can help support my site by purchasing what they want.

However on this occasion I was sent a copy of Team iDemise's 1-70 World of Warcraft Levelling Guide. For those of you who do not know this, Team iDemise or one of the worlds few corporate sponsered Gaming Teams. With multiple cash prize winnings ($300,000) and titles under their belts in everything from Counterstrike Source to Quake, these guys finaly took it upon themselves to try a different game. Namely World of Warcraft.

idemise have not just cobbled together an ebook for their guide, they have made sure everything is integrated into WoW with their very own addon. You can buy this WoW Levelling guide for a mere $39.95 at the moment, for either horde or alliance levelling!

This addon has step by step instructions and locations pinpointed so you know exactly where to go and what to do. More importantly by following this guide you will know what to avoid and what you should be killing!

If you want to find out more about this ingame levelling guide just look Here!

Wednesday 12 March 2008

Tanking Guide to Karazhan

Tanking in Karazhan can be fairly, complex, with each boss requiring vastly different tactics. However our job as a meatshield has the ever simple goal of taking damage.

In this Kara guide I will not talk about trash mobs, they are all fairly simple to tank. Instead I will go through tanking the bosses of Kara with a step by step walkthrough.

So, starting from the beginning!

Attumen the Huntsman and Midnight. (His mighty Steed)

Attumen is the first Karazhan boss, and a very simple fight, but is preferably done with two tanks.

Off-Tank Role.

Take the horse (Midnight) from the beginning of the fight, this is a fairly quick phase and only lasts till midnight reaches 95% health.

When Midnight reaches 95% attumen will spawn, the main tank should take him.

When this occurs take midnight out of the way and against the wall, keep good agro here as all DPS should attack midnight till he reaches 25% health

When this happens Attumen the Huntsman will mount Midnight and reset agro, stop attacking while the main tank gains some agro.

The Main Tank has a fairly easy role in this boss fight, though he does have a couple of moments where he may need to survive without healing for a few seconds.

In the first phase the Main tank should do nothing, however they must be prepared to take control of agro when Attumen spawns in phase 2

When phase 2 occurs attumen will appear and attack randomly. The main tank must gain agro ASAP. Healers can grab agro incredibly easily here so you should suggest they wait two or three seconds before throwing on the heals.

The tank should remember to use shield bash and spell reflection to avoid his curse and keep DPS from Attumen down.

After that you simply have to keep Attumen busy while the DPS knock down Midnight.

When Midnight reaches 25% hp Attumen will mount him. Agro resets again here so both DPS and healers should drop off their task for another 2 or 3 seconds.

You should as main tank face him away from the raid group, however it is imperative that you make sure all raid members get directly behind Attumen and Midnight to avoid his charge ability, something that can easily wipe a raid.

Once this set up is complete it is a nice and easy tank and spank

Maiden of Virtue

The Maiden of Virtue is the second boss in Karazhan. She requires only one tank who should keep her positioned in the middle of her platform.

As a tank you should stock up on healing potions, healthstones and so on, since the repentance cast by maiden can take out all your healers.

If all your healers do get taken out you can remove their stun by moving maiden towards the healer then moving away again once Maiden's holy ground causes some damage and breaks the healers stun.

If you see yourself as the target during a Holy Fire cast use spell reflect if you are a Warrior, it can cause some nice damage!

All in all a pretty easy fight for a tank, rely on the rest of the raid to do their job and you should be fine!

Moroes

Moroes is probably the first real challenge you will have in this instance. For starters Moroes has four adds, or 'dinner guests'. To get around these as many as possible should be crowd controlled till Moroes dies or off tanked and taken down immediately.

On Moroes himself you must have a main tank and an off-tank, this is required because every so often Moroes will gouge the main tank and attack the off tank (or if things go wrong whoever else is second in the threat list) until the incapacitation fades.

Apart from this you will simply have to withstand a large amount of damage and control a rather chaotic fight!

Every so often Moroes will vanish and garrotte a random player, you have to run over and quickly attack him to ensure you do not lose agro to the DPS.

Opera

Opera has three events which must be handled differently.

Firstly The Big Bad Wolf.

This guy hits fairly weakly but has some rather random abilities he can and will randomly turn one of your raid members into little red riding hood. If this happens overload all your threat abilities to try and regain agro, unless of course it is you that gets turned. If this happens run, fast.

He also does a fear, if you can stance dance out of this, fantastic, if you are not too happy about that tactic then make sure priests fear ward you and you have an antifear trinket handy.

Wizard of Oz

The Wizard of Oz is a two stage fight, firstly you have Dorothee and her pals, then you have the wicked witch.

In the first phase the Main Tank should be on Tinhead. This guy deals massive damage but his movement speed gradually slows, meaning that towards the end of the fight he can be kited with no healing required. Off tanks should try and gain agro on Roar and Strawman. Roar is resistant to fear though and this should be kept up, be careful not to interrupt it!

Don't bother tanking Dorothee or Tito, Dorothy is unagroable, she should be nuked by DPS. Tito should not be killed till after Dorothee is dead, otherwise she will enrage.

After all these guys are down the crone will appear, main tank should get on her right away, be careful to keep moving away form the cyclones though!

Romulo and Julianne is a fairly tough fight, just because of the accuracy required when taking them both down.

Julianne will spawn first, take her down and keep in mind that all her spells can be interrupted, especially her heal! keep her tanked in one corner.

When Romulo spawns should be tanked by a warrior for the disarm ability, tank him in the opposite corner.

When Romulo dies both will come back to life. Tank them in their opposite corners. Ranged DPS on Romulo to avoid his DPS attacks and melee on Julianne for their spell interrupts.

The hard part is making sure that both bosses die within ten seconds of each other or one will resurrect their partner.

As a tank you will not take an alarming amount of damage, make sure to keep your disarm/interrupts up though!

Nightbane

Nightbane is one of the hardest bosses in Karazhan and many groups skip him.

However if you are going to take this boss down there are several things that should be considered.

In the ground phase the tank should keep Nightbane against the outer wall, Nightbane fears so a warrior tank is good for stance dancing, but either way it helps to keep things such as fear ward up constantly.

Look out for the charred earth AoE, this can cause disruption in your group and can make movement required under two circumstances

Firstly if Charred Earth spawns below the tank, in which case the tank should move back and the rest should follow. (this is rare but has been known to happen)

Secondly if all the Ranged DPS areas suffer from charred earth, if this happens move back so your ranged DPS and healers can re-position.

During Nightbanes flight phase several things happen, either way the best way to avoid them is for everyone to regroup around the tank, this avoids Nightbane firing fireballs at you.

A secondary tank, preferably a paladin but any others will do, should cast an agro generating AoE as soon as 5 skeletons spawn around you, these guys only have ~13.5k hp so can be taken down quickly.

When Nightbane begins to land all players should go back to their previous positions, with the tank ready to instantly gain agro should he have lost it to healers.

Using an offtank is not required for Nightbane, but it can be useful incase the main tank goes down, If you decide to use an offtank they should sit behind Nightbane in the DPS melee position to avoid overstretching the healers. Only pull one in for this if your main tank dies towards the later stages of the battle though.

Curator

Curator is a gear check in Karazhan. He is a good indication that your group is geared enough for bosses upto Prince and Nightbane.

As a tank in this there is not a huge amount you need to do, keeping the Curator focused on you is your primary concern and is not that hard to do. During the evocation phases you should burn your cooldowns, including any taunts, since DPS will be doing 300% more damage.

Terestian Illhoof and Kil'rek

For this boss you are best using two tanks.

Neither boss is particularly damage intensive on the tanks, infact Terestian Illhoof is fairly easy to tank. Kil'rek can cause problems however as when he respawns he can instantly go for an AoE'r

Both bosses and maybe even imps should be tanked close together to maximise AoE damage.

Paladins are very effective at tanking here, with fire res aura and consecrate they can sometimes even tank both bosses and the imps solo.

A little fire resistance gear here can help, but is definitely not necessary.

Shade of Aran

Aran is one of those bloody annoying bosses with no agro control. Almost singular in Karazhan it is still a pain when you can not direct his damage.

Off tanks should jump into DPS gear for this one, the main tank should still maintain agro since some attacks are based on the agro list, however if your tank feels confident he should switch out for some DPS kit.

Remember to keep an eye out for some of Arans special moves (here) as you still need to correctly negotiate each one.


Netherspite

Netherspite is probably one of the trickiest bosses you will tank, if only for beam management.

You will require two tanks working in rotation, one for each portals phase.

The portals are three zones that open up and fire a beam towards Netherspite, as a tank your main concern is the red one

A single tank can handle this red beam in each phase, he simply has to move in and out of the beam every 5 seconds to remove both Netherspite -damage%taken buff and keep their own max hp higher.

The red beam has several benefits which make it obvious why your tanking class should be using it

Lasts for 20 sec after leaving the beam.
Hits Netherspite:

Damage taken reduced by 1% per tick.

Hits Player:

Netherspite will aggro you.
If no one is standing in the Red Beam, Netherspite uses his standard aggro table.
Damage taken is reduced by 1% per tick.
Defence is increased by 5 per tick.
Health is modified - the first application gives +31,000 maximum health, with additional stacks reducing maximum health by 1000 per stack.
Replenishes full health every tick.


Once you have two tanks on the red beam you will also require two manaless players tanking the green beam, this can be DPS as well as tank classes. However the green beam MUST be kept of Netherspite, its properties are.

Lasts for 10 sec after leaving the beam.
Hits Netherspite:

Heals for +4000 health per tick. (Stacking so it heals for 4K, 8K, 12K, 16K etc. -- it is very important not to let Netherspite get hit by this beam.)

Hits Player:

Healing done is increased by 5% per tick.
Spell and ability cost reduced by 1% per tick (including abilities that require Rage or Energy, in addition to Mana).
Maximum mana reduced by 200. Stacks up until your total mana pool reaches 0. Druids in Bear/Cat Form will have their hidden mana bars affected as well. Rage and Energy maxima are unaffected.
Similar to the red beam, mana is restored to the new maximum with each tick.
If a Hunter uses Feign Death while tanking the green beam they will become exhausted and not be able to tank it anymore, most likely wiping the raid.

Make sure tanking rotations are clear before the fight starts, and try an get your timing right for moving in and out of the beams!

Managing this fight is more to do with practice than gear, once you have the technique down you will have no trouble with this boss!

Chess Event

No tanking required on this one!

Hop onto a chess piece and go!

Prince Malchezaar

The prince is fairly simple to tank, it is however important to keep an eye on the raid.

If possible make sure you keep pots and healthstones for Princes second phase, even when tanking in great gear Prince deals out a huge amount of damage with his weapons and healers may lose a vital couple of seconds healing by an unlucky infernal drop!

If your raid is getting boxed in lead him around the edge of his platform to somewhere were the DPS have more space to move around. Infernals drop regularly and do massive AoE damage, if your group gets stuck, or even worse, separated from you then it will be a wipe.

Good geared druids make good tanks for Prince due to their High Armour and health


And that is how to tank Karazhan!